web link QR Code
Some of you may have heard about or seen QR Codes, or in simple English Quick Response Codes. These things are what they call 2 dimensional bar codes and store information.
These strange little boxes of 1980’s Atari style pixels can store your information and are an excellent tool to bridge that gap between the physical world and the digital world with the use of a scanning app on your smart phone.
Here is a scenario for you…
There is a restaurant that you pass every day on your way to work and no matter how hard you try you are unable to get the time to pop in and grab a menu. If the restaurant were to have QR code on the window or outside somewhere this could be scanned in 2 seconds by your smart phone and details of the restaurant will be immediately available on your device. The information could be anything from a small menu or even the full contact details of the venue so you can contact them later.
Phone Number QR Code
More simply these little stamps can be used quite successfully to help transmit contact details to your smart phone or mobile device to enable immediate dialling of a phone number.
Just think no need to dial the number just scan the code and talk.
To make this work you really need a smart phone like an Iphone, android powered phone or something like a blackberry, pretty soon most modern camera enabled phones should be able to get an app to scan the codes.
I have been having a play around with these codes and have found various code generators out there on the web, so you just type in the information required and then click generate. Sometimes this will pop out with an image or even some html code to put in your website.
I have now started looking at recolouring and redesigning the codes so they can fit within your own branding and look perfectly at home on your website or even printed material like business cards, brochures, flyers and letterheads.
Vcard QR Code
My next project will be to re-design my business card to incorporate the code for my Vcard so when people want to store the information from the card it is all done in one simple scan.
If you would like to know more about QR Codes and how they could be incorporated into your branding please don’t hesitate to contact us by either scanning one of the QR codes on the page or click on the contact button.
Why not give the codes on this page a scan?
Need a scanner app?
Creative Stream 
Your restaurant scenario is excellent. There’s a BIG future for QR codes beyond restaurants as you mention; I agree, printed material like business cards, brochures, flyers and letterheads are a great place to start for any business.
More to ther point, It’s another VERY useful marketing tool.
Posted by Ian Gentles | July 20, 2011, 12:42 pmWhat generator do you recommend?
Posted by Polly | August 1, 2011, 1:54 pmI would recommend Kerem Merkan’s generator as it outputs as the image formats which I use the most. You tend to find a lot of generators out there will output code which links to their site or blog which to be honest I don’t really like.
Link to the generator below….Enjoy!
http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/
Posted by Steve Shepherd | August 1, 2011, 2:12 pm